This is the site and owner of the information http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/open-forum/4621-meditations-yellow-oliver-senior-without-within-ushanda-io-elima.html it is the woman who is the keeper of history.
Not its outward shows of wars, Kings, famines and politics, but family lineages, the changing internal fabric of the village and the praise songs of children. A child returning home from afar would be greeted by the cries of a woman, singing his or her praises, capturing the essence of the son or daughter that has returned.The voices of women have always held the power of our collective history, and are a tangible link to our divine origins, where we are not one, but Everyone, where we are indistinguishable from Gods.As I have recently begun to trace the lineage and history of my own biological family, I too have become the keeper of history and can hear the timbre of my own voice in " Without and Within" and "Meditations on Yellow". As we look back on history, it is really our own selves we seek, and it is in the search for Self that we find God and truly know that "..
. no one am I / and I'm Everyone"In Meditation on Yellow, I am a bitter old woman, not frail and near end of life, but fierce and strong with battle, bitter like gall. My Eye sees far. I was present at the first landing and later wept at my naiveté and wished that foresight had brought poison to the conquerors.
I can see the struggle of centuries of all before me, and my personal history wells and swells with the voices of Amerindians and Afrikans, of Gods who were made slaves. I am their voice and my gray hairs and swollen joints are just the same false patina (like the copper that fools took for gold) that disguises my true essence. Look for Nanny in my eyes. I am still a warrior.I am both "Without and Within" as I see our common origins.
There is sadness too perhaps, borne of an essential rootlessness that is the curse of a colonized people; no country, no home, no identity, but tempered by the recognition that this 'I' that is perceived by those lesser is really just the 'i' and not the best of me. As I rise through history and traverse backward yet forwards through time, my sight grows brighter and I see that as woman I encompass all. I am no subset, no afterthought and no cast-off rib. I am essence; I am primordial.
In these poems I see and hear the echo of myself that I seek, just as I seek my ancestry, just as I seek my history. I am historian, warrior, mother, Griot, praise singer. I am Goddess unbound. Seek me all without country, without race, all who have thirst and desire rest.
